Blandin on Broadband

Jim Baller and Casey Lide, well known for their broadband legal work and excellent daily listserv on community broadband and telcom issues (see http://www.baller.com/contact.html), have just released an excellent proposal to help guide a national broadband policy, called “Eight Bold Steps to a National Broadband Strategy” see http://www.baller.com/pdfs/baller-lide_8Steps_NatBBStrategy.pdf What is interesting about this paper is that it mirrors what many local leaders have done with the Get Broadband program – Form a local leadership group, understand your local market, identify and study your options and take definitive action. A National Broadband Strategy would lay the foundation for better laws that promote broadband. There are new voices calling for this type of action every day.

Given that the Get Broadband communities (and friends) include new and not-so-new voices we wanted to ask you blog readers what you thought. Do you think a national vision is important, possible, too early, too late? Have you read this vision or others you could tell us about? What did you think? What would you add, change or remove? Most importantly, how – if at all – would a shared vision help with your local efforts?